REPORT
Project Acronym:
Europeana Newspapers
Grant Agreement number:
297380
Project Title:
A Gateway to European Newspapers Online
______________________________________________________________________________
Report on Europeana Newspapers Information Day at the National
Library of Austria
______________________________________________________________________________
Revision:
1.0
Authors:
Martin Schaller (National Library of Austria)
Project co-funded by the European Commission within the ICT Policy Support Programme
Dissemination Level
P
Public
C
Confidential, only for members of the consortium and the Commission Services
ICT PSP Reporting
x
1 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
Revision History
Revision
Date
Author
Organisation
Description
0.1
23-10-2014
Martin Schaller
ONB
Draft
1.0
17-11-2014
Clemens Neudecker and
Sandra Kobel
SBB
Internal review and
final version
Statement of originality:
This deliverable contains original unpublished work except where clearly
indicated otherwise. Acknowledgement of previously published material and of
the work of others has been made through appropriate citation, quotation or both.
ICT PSP Reporting
2 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
Table of Contents
1.
Executive Summary ................................................................................................................. 4
2.
Event Overview ........................................................................................................................ 5
3.
Presentations and Discussion .................................................................................................. 6
4.
Impressions and Insights ....................................................................................................... 16
ANNEX I: Agenda ......................................................................................................................... 21
ANNEX II: List of Participants........................................................................................................ 22
ANNEX III: Survey Results ............................................................................................................ 32
ANNEX IV: Media Coverage ......................................................................................................... 34
ICT PSP Reporting
3 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
1. Executive Summary
This report concerns the seventh Information Day for the Europeana Newspapers Project,
organised and held by the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Information Days are a chance for
partners to highlight the work they have been doing in the project at national level.
These Information Days increase overall awareness of the project. They should also convey one of
the following key messages:
1. The value of collaborating at a national and European level to make newspaper content
available online (social, economic, cultural, research, technical etc).
2. How to address the technical issues associated with making digitised newspaper content
available
3. The value of online digitised newspaper collections (i.e. highlight available content).
The Austrian Information Day aimed at increasing overall awareness of the project at end-user
level. Hence available content and the developed content browser was its focus. The background
of participants differed considerable: Besides researchers and librarians also teachers and
students were found amongst the audience. In this way it was possible to reach a very
heterogeneous set of end-users.
Other partners of the project, namely the University of Innsbruck and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
attended the event and contributed to the programme.
ICT PSP Reporting
4 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
2. Event Overview
The Austrian Information Day was held on 16 October 2014 at the Austrian National Library. The
theme “digitized, historical newspapers as a source” was chosen as a golden thread to connect the
different talks. The agenda was developed having participants from very different backgrounds in
mind. Therefore that topic was approached using very different angles.
The Information Day was specifically targeted on end-users of the content browser developed
within the project. Users of digitized newspapers are a very heterogeneous group – from
researchers in digital humanities to ‘amateur users’ interested in very specific regional topics, from
professional historians to teachers and students. Hence the programme (see ANNEX I) was
developed having these diverse backgrounds of potential end-users in mind.
Attendees from different Austrian universities (e.g. University of Vienna, Academy of Fine Arts
Vienna, University of Applied Sciences Burgenland), teachers and private individuals were
welcomed. But also guests from research facilities like the Austrian Academy of Sciences and from
the library sector (e.g. Library of the University of Vienna, Library of Vienna University of
Economics and Business) took part. And students attended the event as well. Hence the
Information Day was a great opportunity to disseminate the project’s goals and achievements to a
very heterogeneous set of attendees, who can be described as potential end-users.
The structure of the Information Day combined talks given by experts with a more practical
approach. Each talk consisted of about 20-25 minutes and 5-10 minutes of discussion, hence
allowing for an immediate interaction between presenter and the audience. But in order to allow for
a more informal discussion we set up Q&A-Sessions with experts in three different fields. The first
was on technical aspects and OCR, the second on how to utilize digitized, historical newspapers in
schools and the third allowed interested users to explore online newspaper portals by themselves.
Although the event wasn’t paired with any additional seminar or conference, it was possible to
attract 63 people including a school class. Promotional material was distributed including postcards
and stickers. There was also a survey designed and handed over to the participants in order to
have more tangible feedback on the Information Day. An overview and analysis of this survey is
given in ANNEX III. The presentations can be found on Slideshare1 as well as on the research blog
of the Austrian National Library2. Photos taken during the event are to be found on Flickr3.
1
http://www.slideshare.net/Europeana_Newspapers
2
http://onbresearch.wordpress.com/
3
https://www.flickr.com/photos/enewspapers/sets/72157648835039480/
ICT PSP Reporting
5 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
3. Presentations and Discussion
Registration opened at 09:00 a.m. and every participant received a welcome map, including
postcards and stickers of the Europeana Newspapers Project.
Figure 1: The venue of the Austrian Information Day, the so-called 'Oratorium'.
ICT PSP Reporting
6 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
The Information Day was opened by a welcome of Max Kaiser, Head of Research and
Development at the Austrian National Library, who also introduced the speakers and moderated
the discussion until the coffee break and after lunch.
Figure 2: Max Kaiser welcomes the participants.
ICT PSP Reporting
7 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
The Europeana Newspapers Project was introduced by Hans-Jörg Lieder of the Staatsbibliothek
zu Berlin4, who not only gave a comprehensive overview over the project’s goals and its current
state but also set it into a wider European perspective on digitisation efforts. His very interesting
conclusion was that the current state of newspaper digitization is best illustrated by a photo taken
shortly after the start of a marathon – a metaphor that recurred during the event and was
controversial discussed.
Figure 3: Hans-Jörg Lieder illustrates the state of newspaper digitization with a picture taken shortly
after the start of a marathon.
4
http://www.slideshare.net/Europeana_Newspapers/europeananewspapersonbinfodayhjlieder
ICT PSP Reporting
8 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
Christa Müller, who is head of the Austrian National Library’s digitization department ‘Abteilung
Digitale Services’, provided an insight into the ONB’s newspaper portal ‘ANNO’ (AustriaN
Newspapers Online)5. An average of 2,500 daily visitors uses the currently 13 million newspaper
pages available online of which about 4 million pages are already made searchable. Christa Müller
also explained how titles are selected for digitization – preservation of fragile originals, public
demand and different projects - and which additional functionalities are planned for ANNO.
Figure 4: Christa Müller demonstrating full-text search in ANNO.
5
http://www.slideshare.net/Europeana_Newspapers/enponbinfoday
ICT PSP Reporting
9 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
Technical aspects of newspaper digitisation were Günter Mühlberger’s (University of Innsbruck)
subject6. His approach was to highlight and comment the different stages of a digitisation project’s
workflow. This included thoughts on technology but also covered fields like copyright, metadata
and archiving issues. Due to the numerous years of experience in this field he pointed out possible
pitfalls but also benefits of a project like the Europeana Newspapers Project.
Figure 5: Günter Mühlberger explaining technical aspects of newspapers digitization.
After a short break the focus shifted to more practical aspects. Therefore the following two talks
provided insights into the day to day work of professional historians with digitized, historical
newspapers. Christa Müller introduced the speakers and moderated the discussion until the lunch
break.
6
http://www.slideshare.net/Europeana_Newspapers/muehlberger-guenter-enponb
ICT PSP Reporting
10 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
Professor Oliver Rathkolb, head of the Institute for Contemporary History (Institut für
Zeitgeschichte) at the University of Vienna showed how he was able to utilize digitized, historical
newspapers in his own research. He remarked that on the one hand his efficiency of work
increased significantly while on the other hand he is now able to find new, so far unnoticed
material. He also emphasized the importance of making more recent historical newspapers
available online, e.g. newspapers published in the interwar period.
Figure 6: Oliver Rathkolb shows how he was able to find new sources by using the newspaper portal
ANNO.
ICT PSP Reporting
11 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
The following talk by Dr Marie-Theres Arnbom, who is a freelance historian, author, curator and
cultural manager, outlined how she is using ANNO through the example of a biography. She chose
Victor Léon, a librettist, and showed the audience how it is possible by using full-text search to find
obscure and even unknown aspects of a life. Marie-Theres Arnbom concluded that with help of
portals such as ANNO it is possible to reconstruct someone’s whole life.
Figure 7: Marie-Theres Arnbom exemplifies her way of working with ANNO using the biography of
Victor Léon.
ICT PSP Reporting
12 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
After the lunch break the Information Day continued with Clemens Neudecker, Staatsbibliothek zu
Berlin.7 His reflective talk combined digitized historical newspapers with aspects of digital
humanities and emphasized not only the ‘relativity’ of big data – what might seem big in terms of
newspaper digitization isn’t so much in other fields - but also pointed out certain statistical
difficulties that might have an impact when working with this source. For example only an
estimated four percent of all European newspaper holdings are digitized so far.8 Hence questions
about sample size need to be considered.
Figure 8: Clemens Neudecker combined Digital Humanities and digitized newspapers in his talk.
7
http://www.slideshare.net/Europeana_Newspapers/enponbinfodayneudecker
8
Clemens Neudecker used the Enumerate Report that can be found at:
http://www.enumerate.eu/en/surveys/thematic_survey/
ICT PSP Reporting
13 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
Clemens Neudecker was followed by Eva Maria Naimer. She delivered very interesting insights in
her own experiences of utilizing digitized historical newspapers in secondary school teaching9. Eva
Maria Naimer showed how different topics, such as censorship and the changing image of women
can be displayed by examples of newspaper articles. Eva Maria Naimer especially emphasized
that digitized historical newspapers provide easily accessible primary sources for students and
provide new opportunities to structure and shape lessons.
Figure 9: Eva Maria Naimer demonstrates how she utilizes digitized newspapers in history classes.
9
http://www.slideshare.net/Europeana_Newspapers/enponbinfodayneudecker
ICT PSP Reporting
14 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
The series of talks was concluded by Martin Schaller of the Austrian National Library, who
demonstrated different newspaper browsers including the portal developed by Europeana
Newspapers10. He chose the example of the Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition to
demonstrate how the Content Browser can be utilized to gather different European voices.
Figure 10: Martin Schaller showed the functionalities of the content browser with the help of an
historic example.
After the last talk, participants had the opportunity to approach experts with their specific questions.
As mentioned above, three different fields have been chosen. Each field had its own work station
in order to allow for hands-on experience. “Technical aspects and OCR” was covered by Clemens
Neudecker and Günter Mühlberger. Eva Maria Naimer answered questions concerning “digitized,
historical newspapers in school teaching”, while Martin Schaller oversaw a work station, on which
the attendees could explore different newspaper portals on their own.
Finally the participants had also the opportunity to attend a guided tour through the State Hall.
10
http://www.slideshare.net/Europeana_Newspapers/schaller-martin-onlinezeitungsportale-iminternationalen-vergleich
ICT PSP Reporting
15 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
4. Impressions and Insights
The Information Day held at the Austrian National Library was a success and received positive
feedback via the survey but also in discussions during and after the event. The goal of promoting
the achievements of the project to end-users was also successfully reached, because, as already
mentioned above, participants with very heterogeneous backgrounds were attracted to the event.
That digitized historical newspapers are of great interest showed the lively discussions after each
talk. Especially presentations centred on practical aspects like how to use such newspaper portals
for different purposes were received very positively. The ‘further comments’ section of the survey
also shows that both content as well as organisation of the Information Day were received
positively. One participant for example wrote: “Congratulations to this event”, while another stated
“very interesting event”.
Participants also engaged in social media activities throughout the day, highlighting especially
interesting insights. The usage of #eurnewsVIE in over 40 Twitter messages shows how the
audience was taking the content of talks further.
The event combined background information on the Europeana Newspapers Project and online
newspaper browsers in general with insights in handling and navigating this source. The
Europeana Newspapers project was acknowledged as a pioneering attempt to bundle national and
regional efforts and lift them to a European level. Hans-Jörg Lieder tried to illustrate this situation
using the metaphor of a marathon shortly after the starting shot. Clemens Neudecker emphasized
this point when reminding the audience that only an estimated four percent of all European
newspapers holdings are digitized so far.
Great interest within the audience sparked discussions around Optical Character Recognition and
Named Entity Recognition, because both topics have a direct influence on the handling of digitized
newspapers. Questions such as how to improve full-texts and when Named Entity Recognition will
be introduced were followed with great interest.
Seeing how historians work with this kind of source was especially informative. Both, Oliver
Rathkolb and Marie-Theres Arnbom, reported that they are able to find otherwise overlooked
sources and increase their own efficiency. But both also touched upon limitations: Not every period
they consider important for their own research is available so far. This leads to a situation where
academic discussions and digitization efforts operate on a different pace. Focus of historical
research in Austria begins to shift to the interwar period but full-text search is not available for this
era so far. OCR-Errors can also lead to decreased hits in full-text search as a blog article, written
after the Information Day, shows.11 Very positive conclusions came from Eva Maria Naimer. As a
teacher she uses this source to elaborate on different themes such as censorship. The focus
shifted away from technical issues to questions with regards to content: How to overcome the
hurdle gothic script? How to contextualize contemporary texts? Such and similar questions showed
that familiarizing younger users with this source is a new but fruitful field.
11
http://mindthegaps.hypotheses.org/1805
ICT PSP Reporting
16 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
Figure 11: Participants of the Austrian Information Day.
ICT PSP Reporting
17 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
Figure 12: The audience listening to Marie-Theres Arnbom's talk.
ICT PSP Reporting
18 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
Figure 13: Many participants engaged in lively discussions after each talk.
ICT PSP Reporting
19 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
Figure 14: Oliver Rathkolb and Christa Müller awaiting questions from the audience.
ICT PSP Reporting
20 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
ANNEX I: Agenda
Vormittag
09:00-09:20
09:20-09:30
09:30-10:00
10:00-10:30
10:30-11:00
Kaffeepause
11:15-11:45
11:45-12:15
Mittagspause
13:15-13:45
13:45-14:15
14:15-14:45
14:45-15:45
16:00
ICT PSP Reporting
Registrierung
Willkommen und Vorstellung der Agenda
Das Europeana Newspapers Project
Hans-Jörg Lieder, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
Zeitungsdigitalisierung an der ÖNB - AustriaN Newspapers Online
(ANNO)
Christa Müller, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek
Technische Aspekte der Zeitungsdigitalisierung
Günter Mühlberger, Universität Innsbruck
ANNO in der Praxis
Marie-Theres Arnbom, Historikerin, Autorin,
Kuratorin und Kulturmanagerin
Die digitalisierte Zeitung als wissenschaftliche Quelle
Oliver Rathkolb, Universität Wien
Digitalisierte Zeitungen und Digital Humanities – Probleme und Chancen
Clemens Neudecker, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
ANNO im Klassenzimmer
Eva-Maria Naimer
Online-Zeitungsportale im internationalen Vergleich
Martin Schaller, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek
Praxisbezogene Frage-und-Antwort-Session mit Experten
Es besteht die Möglichkeit des persönlichen Gesprächs mit Experten zu
den technischen Aspekten der Zeitungsdigitalisierung, dem Einsatz im
Unterricht sowie verschiedene Online-Zeitungsportale selbst zu testen.
Themenkreis 1: technische Aspekte und Optical Character Recognition
Themenkreis 2: historische, digitalisierte Zeitungen im Unterricht
Themenkreis 3: Online-Zeitungsportale selbst entdecken
Im Anschluss besteht für die TeilnehmerInnen die Möglichkeit an einer
kostenlosen Prunksaalführung teilzunehmen
21 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
ANNEX II: List of Participants
Austrian Information Day, Vienna, 10. October 2014
Austrian National Library
ICT PSP Reporting
22 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
ICT PSP Reporting
23 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
ICT PSP Reporting
24 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
ICT PSP Reporting
25 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
ICT PSP Reporting
26 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
ICT PSP Reporting
27 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
ICT PSP Reporting
28 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
ICT PSP Reporting
29 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
Eventbrite Report of attendees:
Surname
Gruber
Müller
Plank
Lehner
Wögerer
Thomas
Dr. Mag. MAUTHE
Schmied-Kowarzik
Baranes
Kreiner
Gaugusch
Ferus
Mitterhuber
Rohrbacher
Wipp-Braun
Wipp-Braun
Wipp
Bösch
Gradauer
Moissi
Hausberger
Jäger
Hartl
Gföller
Poderschnig
Naimer
Komadna
Ecker
Hintersonnleitner
Kaiser
Hagendorfer
Stückler
Simukovic
Klugsberger
stolz
Pfundner
Pfützner
Mader-Kratky
ICT PSP Reporting
First Name
Andrea
Christa
Jennifer
Monika
Theres
Carmen
Gabriele
Margret
Blandina
Judith
Georg
Andreas
David
Peter Mag.
Brigitte
Brigitte
Gerhard
Bianca
Brigitte
Karmen Petra
Claudia
Margit
Petra
Susanne
Michael
Eva-Maria
Adrian
Alois
Michael
Max
Angela
Pamela
Elena
Johann
karl
Michaela
Andreas
Anna
Email
andrea.gruber@donjuanarchiv.at
christa.mueller@onb.ac.at
jennifer.plank@donjuanarchiv.at
lehner@mail.h-net.msu.edu
marie-theres.woegerer@onb.ac.at
Carmen.Thomas@sbb.spk-berlin.de
gabriele.mauthe@onb.ac.at
margret.schmied-kowarzik@wu.ac.at
blandina.baranes@espi.or.at
judith.kreiner@chello.at
g.gaugusch@gmail.com
a.ferus@akbild.ac.at
d.mitterhuber@akbild.ac.at
rohrbacher@evgym.at
wipp-braun@gmx.at
wipp-braun@gmx.at
wipp-braun@gmx.at
bianca.boesch@bg8.at
martin.schaller@onb.ac.at
karmen.moissi@onb.ac.at
claudia.hausberger@vetmeduni.ac.at
margit.jaeger@chello.at
petra.hartl@heustadelgasse.at
gfoeller@mdw.ac.at
magic6@gmx.at
naimer@spengergasse.at
adrian.komadina@gmx.at
alois.ecker@univie.ac.at
mhinters@gmail.com
max.kaiser@onb.ac.at
angela.hagendorfer@onb.ac.at
pamela.stueckler@univie.ac.at
elena.simukovic@hotmail.com
johann.klugsberger@onb.ac.at
kstolz@gmx.at
michaela.pfundner@onb.ac.at
pfuetzner.andreas@gmail.com
anna.mader@oeaw.ac.at
30 / 40
Quantity
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
Resch
Mücke
McNeill
Dill
Eberwein
Stumpf
Kurdiovsky
Hyna
Havlicek
Wöber
Freller
Hadraba
Kragnolini
Götsch
Hofstädter
Schreiner
Wimmer
Arnbom
ICT PSP Reporting
Claudia
Alfred
Gerda
Kristin
Eva
Markus
Richard
Irene
Ursula
Veronika
Adelheid
Manfred
Renate
Simon
Pamina
Hendrik
Bettina
Christiane
claudia.resch@oeaw.ac.at
a.muecke@aon.at
gerda.mcneill@univie.ac.at
kristin.dill@onb.ac.at
eva.eberwein@uibk.ac.at
markus.stumpf@univie.ac.at
richard.kurdiovsky@oeaw.ac.at
irene.hyna@bka.gv.at
ursula.havlicek@onb.ac.at
veronika.woeber@onb.ac.at
adelheid.freller@onb.ac.at
manfred.hadraba@wu.ac.at
renate.kragnolini@onb.ac.at
s.goetsch@web.de
pamina.hofstaedter@hotmail.com
hendrik.schreiner@gmx.net
bettina.wimmer@ing-diba.at
christl@arnbom.com
31 / 40
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
ANNEX III: Survey Results
Every participant received a survey consisting of seven questions. Although turnout was lower than
expected – thirteen completed surveys were returned – some fruitful conclusions can be drawn
from these.
Question 1: Did the Information Day reach your expectations (1: Did not reach expectations at all;
5: fulfil expectation completely)
1
0
2
0
3
3
4
3
5
6
Average: 4,2512
Question 2: Which talk did you find especially helpful? (multiple answers possible)
Question 3: Have you heard about the Europeana Newspapers Project before?
12
Only twelve answered this question
ICT PSP Reporting
32 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
Question 4: Will you be using the developed content browser within the next month?
Question 5: Which online ressources are you using mainly?
ANNO, Library Press Display, Factiva, JSTOR, IMDB, Springer Link, Europeana, ALEX
ICT PSP Reporting
33 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
Question 6: In which field are you working? (multiple answers possible)
Question 7: Any further comments?
ANNEX IV: Media Coverage
-
Blogposts
-
Twitter
-
Flickr
ICT PSP Reporting
34 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
ICT PSP Reporting
35 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
ICT PSP Reporting
36 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
ICT PSP Reporting
37 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
ICT PSP Reporting
38 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
ICT PSP Reporting
39 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014
ICT PSP Reporting
40 / 40
version 1.0 / 17.11.2014